HGTV’s Matt Blashaw Reveals the Origin of the Hammer Flip Challenge and How He Wants to Up the Stakes: ‘Joanna Would Kill Me!’
Chip Gaines may have brought the #DoubleHammerFlipChallenge to the attention of many a Fixer Upper fan on Wednesday, but it was his fellow HGTV star, Matt Blashaw, who put him up to it.
“I’ve been doing the hammer flip on my shows for a few years now and someone told me that they were watching Chip on his show and he was trying it as well,” Blashaw, who hosts the series Yard Crashers, tells PEOPLE. “I figured that Chip seems like a guy that likes a challenge,” he says, so he asked the contractor on Twitter if he was up for it. Chip accepted the proposal, of course, and both are in agreement that it was “the best bad idea we’ve ever had.”
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The HGTV and DIY Network regular — he’s also hosted Vacation House for Free and Professional Grade — tells PEOPLE he learned the trick from long-time Yard Crashers carpenter Doug Tolson. “I’ve been doing it on my shows ever since and some people are even asking for it on social media. I never thought it would catch on like it did.”
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Chip calls out his fellow host in the caption of his Instagram video, writing, “Alright @mattblashaw I nailed it,” before challenging another of the channel’s stars to try out the trick. “Let’s keep this thing going… I challenge my boy and favorite carpenter @clintharpofficial to the #doublehammerflipchallenge good luck!” he writes, tagging Fixer Upper’s go-to carpentry specialist.
Harp also mastered the challenge, and then passed it on to mother-daughter duo, Karen E. Laine and Mina Starsiak of HGTV’s Good Bones, who “CRUSHED” it.
Starsiak has now named J.D. Scott (older sibling of Property Brothers‘ Drew and Jonathan Scott) as the next to give the hammer trick a try. As of Friday afternoon, J.D. hasn’t posted his attempt.
As the tool toss is becoming an HGTV right of passage. Blashaw admits, “Now I’m thinking about the next step … #triplehammerflipchallenge. Although, I think Joanna would kill me.”
Yard Crashers returns to the DIY Network in April.
